“To snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.”
ESSAY ON CRITICISM.
As we despair of offering any thing equal to this lofty flight of genius to the reader of true taste, we shall conclude with recommending to him the immediate perusal of the whole poem, and, in the name of an admiring public, returning our heart-felt thanks to the wonderful author of this invaluable work.
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NUMBER VI.
In our two last numbers we were happy to give our readers the earliest relish of those additional beauties, with which the nineteenth and twentieth impressions of the ROLLIAD are enriched. And these interpolations we doubt not have been sufficiently admired for their intrinsic merit, even in their detached state, as we gave them. But what superior satisfaction must they have afforded to those who have read them in their proper places! They are parts of a whole, and as such wonderfully improve the effect of the general design, by an agreeable interruption of prosaic regularity.
This may appear to some but a paradoxical kind of improvement, which is subversive of order. It must be remembered, however, that the descent of ROLLO to the night-cellar was undoubtedly suggested by the descent of Æneas to hell in the Sixth Book of Virgil; and every classical Critic knows what a noble contempt of order the Roman Poet studiously displays in the review of his countrymen. From Romulus he jumps at once to Augustus; gets back how he can to Numa; goes straight forward to Brutus; takes a short run to Camillus; makes a long stride to Julius Cæsar and Pompey; from Cato retreats again to the Gracchi and the Scipios; and at last arrives in a beautiful zig-zag at Marcellus, with whom he concludes. And this must be right, because it is in Virgil.
A similar confusion, therefore, has now been judiciously introduced by our Author in the Sixth Book of the ROLLIAD. He first singles out some of the great statesmen of the present age; then carries us to church, to hear Dr. Prettyman preach before the Speaker and the pews; and next shows us all that Mr. DUNDAS means to let the public know of the new India Board;—that is to say, the Members of whom it is composed. He now proceeds, where a dull genius would probably have begun, with an accurate description of the House of Commons, preparatory to the exhibition of Mr. ROLLE, and some other of our political heroes, on that theatre of their glory. Maps of the country round Troy have been drawn from the Iliad; and we doubt not, that a plan of St. Stephen’s might now be delineated with the utmost accuracy from the ROLLIAD.
Merlin first ushers Duke ROLLO into the LOBBY: marks the situation of the two entrances; one in the front, the other communicating laterally with the Court of Requests; and points out the topography of the fire-place and the box,
——— ——— ———in which
Sits PEARSON, like a pagod in his niche;
The Gomgom PEARSON, whose sonorous lungs
With “Silence! Room there!” drown an hundred tongues.
This passage is in the very spirit of prophecy, which delights to represent things in the most lively manner. We not only see, but hear Pearson in the execution of his office. The language, too, is truly prophetic; unintelligible, perhaps, to those to whom it is addressed, but perfectly clear, full, and forcible to those who live in the time of the accomplishment. Duke ROLLO might reasonably be supposed to stare at the barbarous words “Pagod” and “Gomgom;” but we, who know one to signify an Indian Idol, and the other an Indian Instrument of music, perceive at once the peculiar propriety with which such images are applied to an officer of a House of Commons so completely Indian as the present. A writer of less judgment would have contented himself with comparing Pearson simply to a